


We're (fucking) Idiots

by SleepingDragons



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Aiden gets hurt, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, But He Gets Better, Confessions, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28297794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepingDragons/pseuds/SleepingDragons
Summary: With a hunt gone horribly wrong, Lambert worries that he's going to lose the person he cares for the most.He manages to save Aiden, but can he survive nursing him back to health without confessing his feelings and ruining everything?
Relationships: Aiden/Lambert (The Witcher)
Comments: 15
Kudos: 151
Collections: The Witcher Secret Santa 2020





	We're (fucking) Idiots

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WitcherSexual](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WitcherSexual/gifts).



> My gift for Agnew! I really hope you like it. Merry Christmas!

“20 crowns for a wyvern. Are you fucking kidding me?”

The alderman, who in the face of a furious Witcher apparently has more bravery than sense, doesn’t budge. “It would have been more, but the last Witcher we hired took the money and ran.”

“That’s really not my problem,” Lambert says, crossing his arms.

“But surely, a Witcher such as yourself would want to make the situation right? To repair your reputation?” His eyes dip down to the wolf’s head medallion around Lambert’s neck. “Or perhaps to prove your school more trustworthy than the Cats.”

Lambert scowls. The fuck does that have anything to do with it? “Look, I don’t really give a shit why you can’t scrunge together enough coin, other Witchers aren’t my business. But I gotta eat, and Witchers don’t work free. With that price, I might as well be.” It would barely even cover the price of his potions, and that’s assuming he got out of the fight unscathed, which wasn’t likely. Wyverns were always a bitch.

“Nonetheless, this is all I can offer you,” the alderman says. Lambert resists the urge to call bullshit, he looked like he could afford the contract thrice over, if the quality of his clothing was anything to go by. So either the cat had taken way more than the contract, or the alderman was lying through his teeth.

Fuck this shit. Lambert stalks out of the tavern, and the alderman wisely says nothing. He only gets about ten feet down the road before a voice stops him.

“Sir Witcher! Wait!”

The voice doesn’t belong to the alderman, if it had Lambert would have kept walking. That condescending fuck would never say ‘Sir Witcher’ without literally dripping with sarcasm and disdain.

Lambert turns and it’s an older woman, panting as she chases after him. He stops, and waits for her to catch up. When she does, she actually leans on him for a moment, catching her breath, completely unafraid. What the fuck.

When she catches her breath, she pulls a purse from a pocket hidden in the folds of her dress. Pressing it into his hands, she meets his eyes earnestly. “I know it’s not much, but please. That beast killed my son and his family.”

“I’m sorry to hear that ma’am,” he says, because he’s not a complete asshole, whatever Geralt might say about it.

“Please,” she says again, and Lambert weighs the purse in his hands. Not much better than the alderman’s offer, but he’d actually believe it was all she could afford.

Fuck it. “Where was the attack?”

She sags with relief, leaning on him again. He didn’t say he was going to do anything, but they both know he will. “They lived in the cottage a ways into the woods. Said the hunting was better there, and his wife liked to forage. Oh, their garden’s a mess by now….” She goes on to tell him what details she has of the attack, Lambert stopping her when he gets what he needs. No need for her to relive finding her child dead.

Guess he’s doing this now.

With the woman’s instructions, finding the cabin doesn’t take long. It’s a good place to start his hunt; from the sounds of it, the wyvern’s hunting ground was nearby. It’s a small cabin, probably only a few rooms, but there’s a sizable vegetable garden, and its clearly well loved. It wouldn’t be a bad place to make a home. Well, if not for the fucking wyvern.

He finds the first sign of the beast remarkably quickly, and from there, tracking it is fairly easy. Honestly, the first Witcher could probably have finished the hunt in less than a day, if he hadn’t run off with the money. He can practically hear Vesemir scoffing, “never trust a cat.” Mentally, he flips off the old man. It’s bullshit, he knows that. But he can’t exactly _tell_ Vesemir why it’s bullshit. At least he knows it’s not Aiden; he always follows through on his contracts, nearly getting himself killed a few times, too.

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Lambert stops in his tracks, remembering the look on Geralt’s face when he told them Remus had died on a hunt. Geralt had given him a proper burial, and brought his medallion and swords back to the keep. The villagers had thought Remus ran off with the money, they didn’t realize the Striga had killed him.

Unbidden, images of Aiden lying bloody and dead fill his head. Why the hell hadn’t he asked the alderman what the other Witcher had looked like? So stupid. He can feel himself spiraling, losing control of his breathing, so he grabs his medallion, holding on tight. The hard cold edges of metal dig into his palm, bringing him back to himself.

He has no reason to believe it’s Aiden. For all he knows whoever it was really did take the prize and run. He can’t let himself fall apart over something that might not have even happened.

He pushes forward, keeps tracking the beast. Eventually he catches the harsh smell of old blood and rotting flesh. The stench is so fucking ripe it makes him want to tear his nose off instead of following it. But he does, holding his breath as much as he can. The contract’s for a wyvern, but this smells more like a necrophage. It wouldn’t be the first time there were multiple monsters near a village, and it certainly wouldn’t be the first time villagers who’ve never seen a bestiary in their lives completely fuck up the identification. The smell leads to a clearing in the forest. Flies swarm over the crumbled body of a wyvern. It’s been there a few days, decaying in the summer heat. About when the other Witcher had been through.

Witchers sometimes killed monsters they ran into, even without contracts. But something as large as a wyvern, they’d take a trophy and check nearby towns for a contract. If you do the work, might as well claim the money. So if this Witcher had killed it, the odds of him having survived the battle were low. Fear starts to creep into his gut, icy cold. It might have been Aiden.

There’s no body. He holds onto that fact. No body means Aiden isn’t dead, no one is. Just this rotten wyvern. Across the clearing, there’s broken branches, even a young tree knocked over. Like something heavy fell out of the sky onto it. Might have been the wyvern, might have been something else. Worth investigating.

There’s more damage, something big tearing through the undergrowth. The wind changes, pushing the smell of blood and rot closer to him. There’s rotting wyvern, but something else. The blood doesn’t smell right. It’s tainted, toxic.

Lambert hurries forward, praying he’s wrong. There’s another wyvern, lying dead on the forest floor. A sword sticks out from his neck, unmistakably a Witcher’s sword. Tied to the hilt is a greenish gold ribbon, and Lambert’s heart drops into his stomach.

No, no no. This can’t be happening. He runs to it, grabbing the ribbon. The scream tears itself from his throat before he even feels it coming. “Aiden!”

Lambert loses himself. Sharp grief and rage take hold, mixing with the icy fear, driving rational thought from his mind. He can’t stop screaming, even as he frantically searches for Aiden. Instead, he finds a blood trail, toxic and reeking of potions. He follows it, trying desperately to wrestle control of himself back from his raging emotions. If Aiden was strong enough to drag himself away, he might still be alive. He has to hold himself together long enough to find him.

The journey from the dead wyvern to the cave passes in a blur of tears and fear. When he spots the cave, he rushes in, no thought of possible monsters, only that Aiden might have taken shelter there.

There’s a crumpled form just inside the cave. Covered in dirt and blood, he’s almost unrecognizable, but it’s Aiden. Lambert falls to his knees next to him, praying he’s not dead. There’s a pulse, sluggish even for a Witcher’s standards, but it’s there. His breath is shallow and ragged, and his skin is burning up.

Shoving his emotions down, Lambert switches into problem solving mode. Aiden’s torn up, scratches, some deep and jagged, litter his body. There’s a risk of infection there, but the black veins speak of a toxicity that might not be the result of potions. There’s a bloody patch on his lower leg, and Lambert tears away the fabric, revealing a trident puncture from the fucking wyvern.

The wound is terrible, puss filled and putrefying, black veins trailing away from it. The flesh around it is discolored and swollen, and when Lambert touches it, it’s tight and hot. Fuck.

Luckily, Lambert came prepared. He always is, likes to have more than enough of anything he might need. He’s not fucking dying because he ran out of a potion, and now Aiden won’t either.

A burst of Igni sterilizes his knife, and Lambert apologizes to an unconscious Aiden before scraping out the gunk and puss from the wound. Aiden groans and struggles away from the pain, but he doesn’t wake. Lambert tries not to be too worried about that. Another apology, then he pours Golden Oriole over the wound. It hisses and bubbles, clearing out the poison.

While that sits, Lambert turns his attention to Aiden’s other wounds. There’s a deep set of scratches on his left arm, and another on his stomach. The bleeding’s stopped, but they need to be cleaned, and then stitched up. Lambert works quickly and carefully, keeps his stitches neat. Aiden would be pissed if he ended up with a nasty scar because Lambert got sloppy with his stitch work.

A splash of water to clear out more of the toxins and the old Golden Oriole, then another dose. This time, Aiden wakes, green gold eyes wide with panic and pain. He jerks away, hand scrambling for a weapon.

“Hey, no, it’s me!” Lambert says, empty hands up, showing he’s not a threat.

Aiden’s eyes clear, recognition dawning. “Lamb?” He struggles to sit up, but Lambert pushes him back down with a hand on his chest.

“Easy. Don’t try to move yet.”

Aiden stays down, but he reaches up to cover Lambert’s hand on his chest with his own. Lambert interlaces their fingers and squeezes gently. _I’m here._

Aiden’s eyes start to close, his body urging him back to sleep so he can rest and recover, now that he knows it’s safe. “Hey, not yet, okay?” Lambert says. “Gotta get some potions in you.” Later, he’d ask why the hell he hadn’t taken anything, but for now he’s just going to focus on getting Aiden through this.

Carefully, he helps Aiden sit up enough to drink down a dose of Swallow, then half a dose of Golden Oriole. Aiden wrinkles his nose at the taste, so he follows it up with a swig of water from his waterskin. “Hate that stuff,” Aiden murmurs, already drifting off.

The sun dips down over the horizon, but Lambert doesn’t sleep. He stays by Aiden’s side, watching over him. Lambert came so close to losing him, he won’t risk Aiden getting worse in the night. He can’t lose Aiden. Not yet.

Aiden wakes up, his entire body aching. He lays still, taking stock of his wounds. His leg no longer burns, feeling like it was going to rot off. He had been so sure that would be the blow to take him out in the end, but it seems he’s managed to pull through.

A soft noise of someone shifting next to him alerts him he’s not alone. His eyes fly open, only to see Lambert. So it hadn’t been a dream then.

“You’re awake,” Lambert says.

“And you look like shit,” Aiden croaks out, throat dry and scratchy. He really did. His eyes were bloodshot, with dark bags he could stash his whole overstocked potion kit in.

“Have you seen yourself lately?” Lambert shoots back.

Aiden doesn’t rise to the bait. Lambert passes him the waterskin, and he drinks from it greedily, before meeting Lambert’s eyes. “Did you even sleep, wolf?” It wouldn’t be the first time Lambert had stayed up the whole night, but usually that was for a hunt or when he’s started tinkering with his alchemy set. Not taking care of Aiden. But it sure as hell doesn’t _look_ like Lambert had slept.

“Someone had to make sure you stayed alive, kitty. You don’t actually have nine lives, you know.”

“So that’s a no, then,” Aiden says. Lambert doesn’t answer. A memory surfaces from the night before, foggy with sleep. Lambert had a hand in his hair, tenderly stroking through the curls, murmuring that he was going to be okay, that he was safe now. Aiden thought it had been a dream, or a wishful hallucination. His exhausted mind conjuring up the person he wanted most to see. But maybe it had been real.

Lambert busies himself with looking over his wounds, and Aiden lets him. It’s… nice. Having Lambert care for him, not the wounds themselves. Lambert’s careful with him, gentle in a way that conflicts with his brash personality. It’s not the first time Lambert’s patched him up after a fight, and it probably won’t be the last. But Aiden hoards the tender touches anyway, forcing himself to be content with just this. He won’t ruin what they have by asking for more.

Once he’s certain Aiden’s healing well enough, Lambert sits back and fixes Aiden with a stern stare. “Why didn’t you take anything?”

“My potion bag got smashed in the fight.”

Lambert curses. “Lucky I was there, then.”

Aiden smiles, looking at his grumpy, prickly wolf. “Yeah. I am.”

It doesn’t take long before Aiden’s tired of being filthy. There’s still blood and dirt on most of his skin, and his clothes are a lost cause. He maybe bitches a little to Lambert, then asks if he could lead him to a stream so he can clean off.

Lambert grins. “I can do you one better. I can get you to an actual bath.” Apparently, the woman who hired him had given him permission to rest in the cabin if he needed it. Aiden remembered passing by that cabin, it wasn’t too far from here.

“Lead the way then,” Aiden says, as he stands up. His leg’s shaky underneath him, but he can walk. He takes a step, putting more weight on it, and hisses as pain shoots up his leg. Maybe not then.

Lambert’s by his side in an instant, throwing Aiden’s arm over his shoulders and looping his own around Aiden’s waist. Aiden leans into him, taking the weight off his injured leg. “Fucking moron. You’re not dying anymore, but you’re not walking any time soon.”

“So what do you suggest then?” he says, trying to ignore the feel of Lambert’s arm around him, how it makes his heart race.

“Easy. I carry you.”

“What-” He doesn’t get the sentence out before Lambert scoops him up in his arms, still so careful not to jostle his leg.

“Warn a guy next time!” He yells.

Lambert shrugs. “I did.”

“I’m not sure if it counts if I barely get a chance to process it before you do it.”

“Still warned you, though,” Lambert says with a cheeky smirk, and then starts walking. Aiden loops his arms around Lambert’s neck, ostensibly to keep his balance, even though he knows Lambert would never drop him. He’ll take any excuse he can get to hold onto his wolf.

The cabin turns out to be a little under an hour away, and Lambert doesn’t stop for a break even _once_. He just carries Aiden the whole way to the cabin, arms not even trembling. Even for a Witcher, that’s impressive. Aiden just hopes the smell of old blood still lingering on him is enough to mask the rising lust at the thought of what _else_ those arms could do. Lambert doesn’t need Aiden drooling over him when he’s just trying to be a good friend. If he returned Aiden’s feelings, he would have done something by now, gods know Aiden’s made it obvious enough that he’s interested in Lambert. So. Just friends.

When the cabin comes into view through the trees, with it’s well tended garden and cozy atmosphere, Lambert is struck again with how much it looks like a home. In another life, he might have lived there.

Carrying Aiden across the threshold is a bit more complicated than he might have imagined--not that he’d imagined it before--he has to turn sideways to avoid smacking Aiden’s injured foot on the doorframe.

“Be careful, that would be a terrible start to a honeymoon,” Aiden teases, and Lambert nearly trips with a muttered curse. If he hadn’t been thinking of that particular tradition before, he was now. There’s nothing he can do to stop his racing thoughts. Slipping a silver ring onto Aiden’s finger. Kissing his smiling face. Carrying him over the threshold of their new home. An entire life flashes before his eyes. Laughing together, sharing meals, spending the nights tangled up together. Safe. Happy.

“Think the wyvern ruined that already,” Lambert snarks back, not even thinking. It was a nice fantasy, but that’s not his life. They’re Witchers, they don’t even get a retirement, let alone a happy life. And who the hell is he to think he could have that with Aiden? They’ve been friends for years, but just that. Friends.

Lambert can’t deny his feelings, though he definitely tried for the first few years. He still remembers when he realized. They had just finished clearing out a kikimora nest, their plan coming together flawlessly. Aiden had laughed, green gold eyes practically glowing with happiness, and told him they made a good team. The sudden rush of _feelings_ had nearly knocked him over. _Oh_ , Lambert had thought. _Oh, shit_

Just because he _wanted_ , didn’t mean he actually got to have. Aiden flirted, but he’d done that from the beginning, never gave the impression it was anything more than fun for him. And Lambert sure as fuck wasn’t going to ask. He could admit in the privacy of his own mind that he was too scared to lose what little he had.

Yesterday had been too close. He almost lost him

He pushes the thoughts from his mind, and fights back the rising panic, shoving the emotions down into a locked box. It didn’t happen. He got there in time, and now Aiden needs him. The damn thing’s actually outside, who does that? It’s a decent size, though, should be good for soaking in. He drags it inside, and Aiden’s eyes light up. He hates being dirty, always has.

Lambert’s teased him about it before, how maybe he could just take a tongue bath if he’s so concerned about it. Aiden usually tells him to fuck off and go chase his tail, but he smiles while he says it.

There’s a set of privacy screens, so Lambert sets the tub behind them, then starts hauling bucket after bucket in from the well. Aiden sets them to boiling with Igni, and dumps them into the tub. Once it’s full, he leaves Aiden to it, giving him privacy.

“Uh, Lambert?” Aiden calls after a few minutes.

“Yes?”

“I need a little help.”

“What, tongue can’t reach that far?” Lambert snarks, but he comes to help anyway, stopping just on the other side of the privacy screen.

When Aiden responds, his voice is small, embarrassment coloring his tone. “No, I, I can’t get in.”

“What do you mean, you can’t get in?”

“With my leg, I can’t balance on my own. Could you help?”

Fuck.

Lambert agrees, because of course he does. It’s Aiden. He’ll always help. But it’s also Aiden. Aiden with no clothes, just his medallion, all that dark skin on display. Lighter scars crisscross his body, and Lambert wants to trace them with his fingers, maybe even his mouth. He follows one that starts on his chest, trailing down his torso it end at his hip, right near--

Face flaming, he snaps his eyes back up to Aiden’s face. Mercifully, Aiden doesn’t say anything. “How do you want me to do this?” he asks.

They settle on Lambert’s arm around his waist, Aiden’s arm thrown over his shoulder. Getting him into the bath is an awkward ordeal, but he tries his best to focus on helping, not how Aiden’s skin feels under his hands. Once Aiden’s safely into the water, injured leg hanging over the edge, keeping the wound out of the water, Lambert practically flees.

A paranoid part of him doesn’t want to leave the cabin, as if Aiden’s going to be gone when he comes back. But he pushes it down. They need to find food, and Aiden’s sword is still stuck in the wyvern. He lets Aiden know where he’s headed, then heads out.

He sets up snares in the surrounding area, then hauls ass back to the wyvern. It’s not actually that far from the cabin. The stench is no more pleasant this time than the first, making him gag as he approaches. It’s moved past necrophage and into something worse. A necrophage nest in an overflowing sewer, maybe. The sword glints in the sunlight, and he holds his breath when he pulls it from the beast. There’s blood on the ribbon and Lambert winces. He remembers picking it out from a shop at some festival. It matched Aiden’s eyes. Aiden kept it tied to his sword, so he’d always have it with him, a good luck charm on hunts. Lambert slings the sword onto his back, then runs as fast as he can back to Aiden.

“Got your sword,” he says, coming in.

“Thought you were getting food,” Aiden calls from behind the screens.

“Shit.” He may have forgotten about checking the snares on the way back.

“Since you’re here anyway, could you help me out of here?”

“Done soaking then?”

Getting him out is worse than getting him in. Lambert ends up nearly soaked, but Aiden flashes that crooked grin at him, so he doesn’t mind. Aiden leans on him while he dries off, scrubbing the worn towel over his skin. He could lean on the chair instead, but Lambert doesn’t ask him to. It’s only when he reaches for his clothes that he pulls away from Lambert and leans on the chair.

Aiden picks them up, then drops them, nose wrinkling in disgust. They’re covered in blood, wyvern guts, sweat and who knows what else. They should be burned. “No. Not happening.” He sends a flirty look Lambert’s way. “I could just not wear anything.”

Lambert flushes again, looking away. “I have an extra set in my pack. You could wear those.”

“I swear, you’d be prepared for the world to end if it came down to it,” Aiden laughs.

“That’s the plan.”

Aiden in his clothes. It’s a lot. Lambert’s scent hangs off him, mixing with his own. How the hell is he going to survive this?

It doesn’t do anything to dispel the fantasy of a normal life. Especially when Aiden sends him back out to check the snares, and see what’s in the vegetable garden. “Carrots? Onions? Maybe a potato?” There’s two rabbits in the snares, and Aiden’s planning a stew.

“I could do it, you should stay off your leg,” Lambert offers.

“Not a chance. You can’t cook to save your life. I’ll just set my chair near the pot.”

“If I couldn’t cook to save my life, I’d be dead. I’m not always blessed with your cooking, you know.”

“Fine. I stand corrected. You can’t cook anything that actually tastes _good_ , to save your life.”

“Fair.”

The stew is delicious, better than anything Lambert could have made. They talk, joke and laugh, seated around that little table. It’s almost painfully domestic, and so close to what Lambert wants. They’re safe, happy, warm in front of the fire.

Night arrives earlier than Lambert would have expected, the stress having distorted his perception of time. The exhaustion hits, trying to drag him down into sleep. Aiden must notice, because he yawns with all the overwrought theatrics of a cat before saying they should head to bed.

He stands, and Aiden moves to follow, only to fall back into his chair with a hiss of pain when his leg buckles underneath him. Lambert’s heart jumps into his throat, and all at once, the peaceful fantasy shatters. This isn’t their life, and Aiden’s wound is the physical proof of that.

Carefully, he rolls up Aiden’s pant leg and unwinds the bandages. For a terrifying second he sees the wound as it was, black and putrefying, poison and death creeping up Aiden’s leg and towards his heart. He blinks and the vision’s gone, revealing a clean wound. The Golden Oriole had done its job, clearing away the poison, and his leg was starting to heal. But even with a Witcher’s healing, it still wasn’t steady enough to walk on. He offers another potion, more Swallow, or maybe just some White Gull to dull the pain, but Aiden waves him off and tells Lambert to help him to bed.

With Lambert’s help, Aiden hobbles from the kitchen into the main bedroom, wincing when he accidentally jostles his leg too much. Every tiny noise of pain twists the knot in his guts tighter, he can’t stop thinking about what would have happened if he hadn’t found him. How long would it have taken Lambert to find out Aiden was gone? That he had lost the person that matters most?

Once Aiden’s in bed, Lambert pulls away. He has to get himself under control. Aiden’s fine, but he’s spiraling, fear dragging him down underwater where he can’t breathe.

“Where are you going?” Aiden asks, pulling him back to the surface.

Lambert latches onto the first thing that comes to mind that isn’t ‘I’m running away so I don’t have to think about losing you.’ “I was going to see if there were more blankets, I could set up on the floor.” It’s a flimsy excuse, but it’s the best he could do.

Aiden frowns. “You’re not sleeping here?”

“You need the bed more than I do,” he says, shrugging. They’ve shared before, and there was room, but Aiden’s wounded.

“Bullshit. You didn’t sleep at all last night, too busy watching over me. It was a touching gesture, but I’m fine now. Get in here.” He reaches out to grab Lambert’s hand, tugging him so he falls into the bed. Lambert ends up on his side, facing him. Aiden gives his hand a gentle squeeze, then lets go, murmuring good night and closing his eyes.

Lambert tries to sleep. He really does. But with nothing to distract his mind, he keeps returning back to when he thought Aiden was dead. The fear he felt in that moment rushes over him again, making his limbs tremble and his heart pound.

He fights to get his breathing back under control, tries to match it with Aiden’s. Slow, even breaths, proof that he’s alive, that he survived. ‘ _This time_ ’ a dark voice whispers. A Witcher’s life isn’t safe, it can’t be. How long until another hunt goes wrong, and he loses him anyway? No matter how much they try, something’s going to get them in the end. It’s not fucking fair! Rage boils up, mixing with the fear until he can feel it writhing under his skin.

“Lamb!”

Lambert opens his eyes, finds Aiden staring at him, eyes wide, raw concern on his face. He reaches out a hand towards Lambert’s, stopping just before they make contact, asking permission. Lambert nods frantically, grabbing Aiden’s hand with a white knuckled grip.

“What’s wrong?”

Everything. His emotions are too much, too swirled and jumbled to get anything coherent out. He can’t explain, can’t force them into an order that makes sense, so he just grabs onto the first thing he can. “I didn’t ask for this.”

“I know you didn’t.”

It all comes out in a rush. He never asked to be a Witcher, never had a choice. This is just his life now, fighting monsters and barely escaping death until it isn’t, and there’s nothing. He can’t have any of this, and he gestures weakly to somehow encompass everything, the bed, the cabin, the _home_ and the life he never got to have.

“I thought I lost you,” he finally admits, voice broken.

Aiden makes a punched out sound at that, then gathers him up in his arms. Lambert ducks his head under Aiden’s chin, pressing his face against his chest. The fabric of his shirt is wet, and

Lambert realizes he’s crying. He hasn’t cried in decades.

“Never,” Aiden swears, holding on tight. His arms are like iron bands around him, but instead of feeling trapped, Lambert just feels secure. He can feel Aiden’s heartbeat, thudding under his ear, reverberating throughout his whole body, shaking him to his bones. Every beat seems to dissolve his fear and anger, and slowly, the tension starts draining out of him.

“You’d have to try a lot harder than that to get rid of me. A dragon, maybe.” It startles a laugh out of Lambert, and it washes away the rest of his hurt. He feels… empty almost? Like a wound that needed to be lanced before it could heal.

They lay like that for what feels like hours, not quite asleep, but not quite awake either. It’s like floating. Aiden’s got a hand in his hair, scratching at his scalp, and Lambert can feel himself drifting off. He’s on the very edge of sleep when Aiden says it, so soft he almost doesn’t hear.

“Love you.”

Suddenly, Lambert is very, very awake. He pulls back and fixes Aiden with an incredulous look. “What did you just say?”

Aiden, for his part, is only a minute or two from sleep himself. “Wha?” His face is scrunched up in sleepy confusion, and he tries to pull Lambert back to him. It would be tempting if not for the verbal bomb he just dropped.

“No, you just said you love me. You love me?”

“Okay?” He says this like it’s so obvious it’s not worth commenting on, like Lambert had pointed out he was a Witcher.

“Okay?!?! You tell me you love me and all you have to say is okay?!” He’s almost yelling now, and it seems to be the thing that finally wakes Aiden up. There’s a moment of panic, like Aiden’s trying to figure out how to backtrack before he just seems to give in.

“Don’t act so surprised about it,” Aiden says, not quite meeting his eyes.

“The fuck? How, exactly, am I supposed to not be surprised by that?!”

“Lambert. I’ve been flirting with you practically since we met. I thought I made it obvious, and you just weren’t interested.” He pauses, hope and fear warring on his face. “Are you?”

Instead of answering, Lambert surges forward and kisses him. It’s too fast and too hard, and their teeth knock together, before they manage to get the angle right.

When he pulls back, Aiden looks stunned. “Oh. That answers that then.”

“So let me get this straight. You’ve been flirting with me for over a decade, but didn’t think I was interested. And I’ve been thinking this whole time that you weren’t serious, because you’re always like that. Is that right, or have I finally cracked?”

“Only like that around you, but yeah.” A part of Lambert is preening over that, that he’s the only one for Aiden, but a bigger part of him is focused on something else.

“We’re fucking idiots.”

**Author's Note:**

> There will be some epilogue/bonus scenes posted sometime during January, I think. My thanks to Leah and Shannon for helping me smooth out some plot points, you really helped. Now if only someone could help me figure out a title.... edit: Thank you Rawr for a fitting title! Our boys are idiots and we love them so much


End file.
